Saturday, October 13, 2012

Amityville II: The Possession

Sometimes “Fangoria” Magazine
is more trouble than it is worth. I blame Fangoria for the loss of two hours of
my life. I watched Amityville II: The Possession because stupid Fangoria
featured it in its “Tribute to 1982.” I should have known that a “Tribute to
1982” would lead to heartache.

Amityville II is the first film I have watched in a long time that made
me feel dirty afterwards. I didn’t even feel this dirty after The Human
Centipede. Before I get into it, let me give you a little background on my
history with Amityville. I first saw the film when I was a little kid,
and it scared the little kid shit out of me. Not because of the ghosts or the
house or the murders. No, it was James Brolin that scared the shit out of me.
He is so creepy in that film, even before the ghosts and demons and whatnot.
And Margo Kidder! God, she is horrifying!! That film seriously scarred me. So
I never saw the sequels. I never even saw the remake for fear that I would
never be able to watch a Ryan Reynolds film again. And I am glad I didn’t
because Buried was the bomb. I did, at one point, read every
Amityville book. They go from stupid to ridiculous. George Lutz is full
of it, and by "it" I don’t mean rainbows. He lucked out and purchased a house
with a past and made up this stupid story, and then dragged it on and on and
on. Enough!

Back to
Amityville II. I was intrigued because Tommy Lee Wallace wrote the
script and Rutanya Alda starred as the Mom, Dolores Montelli. Alda also starred
in one of my favorite films of all time: Mommie Dearest. She played
Carol Ann, the Assistant who picked the drunken Joan Crawford up off the floor.
Such an awesome film. Those are pretty weak reasons, I will admit, but I seem
to be on a bad sequel run, so it was appropriate.

Here is the story. Amityville II is a prequel of sorts, concentrating on
the real life murders that took place in the house before the Lutz family moved
in. Instead of the DeFeo family, we have the Montelli family: Dad (Paulie from
Rocky), Mom, Sonny (the Ronald DeFeo, Jr. character), daughter Patricia,
and two little ones. The family is a mess to begin with. The Dad is abusive,
and it is suggested he rapes his wife. Mom is a co-dependant mess. Sonny and
Patricia seem pretty normal, at least until they sleep together half way through
the film! Yuck. Seriously, this is one of the most horrible “love” scenes I
have ever seen. Of course, brother Sonny is by this point possessed by a demon,
but that is no excuse for incest! Gross. Before the demon possession, weird
things begin to happen around the house. Dad blames everything on his kids,
which leads to more beatings. Mom tries to get a Priest to come bless the
house, but even he is skeeved out by this family and doesn’t complete the
blessing. Later, after Sonny kills his family (they pretty much deserved it), the Priest feels all guilty and tries to prove that Sonny is innocent. "Twas the Demon that killed the family!" What malarkey! (Thanks Joe Biden!)

Amityville II has a few spooky scenes in it and the sequence where Sonny kills his family is truly chilling. But that alone does not make this worth watching!! It is just a weird film and quite honestly, after the family is killed it should have ended. But it goes on and on and on.

In other news, the Amityville house used in the film is apparently for sale. This wasn't the "real" Amityville house where all the shenanigans took place. That house, in Long Island, has been altered and the address changed. I bet it is not too hard to find. I would love to buy that house. I can handle demon pigs with glowing red eyes!